Changing attitudes: Whisper's head of production for sport, Karen Knowles, on the evolution of women in broadcasting By Heather McLean, Editor
Monday, December 7, 2020 - 12:25
Print This Story
Whisper's Karen Knowles
Karen Knowles is head of production for sport at broadcast company Whisper. She has come into the world of sport from the entertainment and factual genre, where she cut her teeth before following a colleague to Whisper.
Since she began her career, Knowles has seen a lot change in terms of attitudes towards people who did not fit the preconceived model of women in TV.
She says: When I started in TV in the mid-90s, the entertainment departments were known for only employing certain types of people. I was a northern, gay female who didn't fit that profile. I remember being told that I didn't get the production secretary job on Des O'Connor Tonight' as I wasn't blond!
My mantra was to plough on through, though; work hard and be nice to people.
Trusting your instincts
On advice Knowles would give to other women looking to move into a role in sports broadcasting similar to her own, she says: If you go into TV thinking that you are starting at a disadvantage because you are a woman, then you are on a path to fail. Even though I know I was the victim of preconceptions over the years, I just brushed it off and kept going.
Don't ever think that you can't ask for what you want and don't ever doubt your own ability, strength and resilience; always trust and go with your instinct. Imposter syndrome is real, and women have to work in different areas and overcome this in their working environments, she states.
The draw to sports production is that it is fast moving, fast turnaround and high end; I just love the pace of it
As to how Knowles first found out about TV broadcasting as a career, she says: I remember being at school around the age of 13, and I loved English. I had pinned my hopes on being a journalist, so I went all out for that; writing short vinyl and concert reviews and sending them off to all of the usual music newspapers and outlets (as well as teletext!).
Sports broadcasting wasn't on my radar at that age, but I was a very keen sportswoman, with football, hockey and netball being part of my daily life.
Knowles studied English and Media with Philosophy. She comments: I was average in terms of academia so I focused more on getting work experience in print journalism and radio as soon as I left sixth form; I knew that my personality would open doors more than my grades.
That's when broadcasting spiked my interest, she adds. I knew that I wanted to learn how to make programmes and I got an internship in London for one year post-university; they paid for my travel card every week and in return, they taught me how to make small radio features.
Eilidh Barbour prepares for the Women's Football Show in the dressing room with Whisper
Spice Girls to sports
She got work experience at the Big Issue, Radio 5 Live and for the launch of Channel 5. Her first job came off the back of that launch, with the Spice Girls and Steps in attendance! , she notes.
I was paid £170 a week as a runner on their daytime live magazine show, Knowles goes on. I loved it! I liked the variety of guests and items that we produced. One day you'd have a celebrity from Coronation Street' and the other day you'd have an item on dysfunctional dogs, she laughs.
As Knowles' career progressed she did more work in the studio and on live shows. I worked in entertainment, factual entertainment and children's for 20 years, she says. Sports output was an easy skill to transfer across in terms of production, even though the technical language used in sports broadcasting can be totally different.
I always made sure that I worked on shows that had a good profile on primetime channels and I made sure that I was never pigeonholed into one genre. I have also moved around and worked at the BBC, Thames, plus a few indies. Working for different companies has meant that I have a breadth of knowledge that you only get when you have moved around and worked across the board.
On her current role as head of production for sport at Whisper, Knowles comments: My current boss Juli Porter and I worked together in BBC entertainment previously. We stayed in touch, we got on well and that was that!
I was approached for this job as I knew I wanted to work for my boss, and Whisper was a production company that has a unique identity and work ethic in sports production.
But, she adds: Getting the job was the easy bit; the learning curves are steep in terms of management, legal, compliance and COVID.
On those challenges, Knowles notes: Making sure that you pretty much know what every person should be working on, but not micromanaging your team, is a challenge. I try to trust and empower the team. If things go wrong, everyone has each other's back. We laugh, we work very hard, we care about the output and we care about the people that work at Whisper.
Back to business as usual
During lockdown, while Knowles herself was not furloughed, other staff at Whisper were. She worked to support those people as well as continuing to do the day job.
Knowles explains: We worked very hard to emotionally support the team during lockdown, including the ones on furlough. We always tried to keep remote production and editing moving along as part of the continuing production business. Our COVID protocols were watertight and we made sure that we filmed and edited as soon as it was safe to do so; keeping production moving - albeit on a tiny scale - was psychologically crucial.
As live sport has returned after lockdown, for Knowles it is business as usual, with the luxury of having the full team working again on all of the live an
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Changing attitudes: Whisper's head of production for sport, Karen Knowles, on the evolution of women in broadcasting By Heather McLean, Editor 
